The History of the Guatemalan Civil War and the country´s current attempts at a Peace Process
Population and Ethnicity
Guatemala is a small Central American country that holds 13.4 million people in an area roughly the size of Tennessee. Close to 60 percent of the population is of European descent, while the remaining 40 percent are indigenous descendents of the Maya civilization that covered much of Mesoamerica before the arrival of the Spaniards. Two other ethnic groups make up less than one percent of the population –a non-Mayan indigenous group known as the Xinca and the Garífuna, descendents of former slaves. Although Spanish is the country’s official language, 23 indigenous dialects are also spoken.
The Guatemalan Civil War
Guatemala is still recovering from the longest and deadliest war to be fought in Latin America. Between 1960 and 1996 over 200,000 Guatemalans were killed by military and paramilitary forces, according to the United Nation’s Commission for Historical Clarification. The war pitted a series of military governments against several guerilla movements that later combined to become known as the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG). Many of the war’s victims, however, were not guerillas but members of a larger nonviolent social movement that included farm workers, labor leaders, and student activists. The vast majority of them were people of indigenous ancestry, prompting the Spanish Constitutional Court to declare the war a "genocide."
The United States also played a key role in the conflict. According to CIA documents declassified in 1999, US officials were aware of the torture, kidnappings, and murders of civilians the Guatemalan army committed throughout the war, yet continued to provide the country with military aid to prevent the “communist threat” that it saw in the emerging social movements. Several months after the release of the documents then-president Bill Clinton travelled to Guatemala and issued an official apology for U.S. actions during the war.
Aftermath of the War
In 1996 a peace accord was signed between the Guatemalan government and the URNG, which later became an official political party in 1998. Today the government, in compliance with the peace accords, has de-militarized former conflict zones and introduced educational programs in public schools to preserve Mayan culture. Still, many of those who held decision-making roles in the military when the massacres occurred continue to occupy positions of power. In January of 2007 former president Efraín Ríos Montt was elected to the Guatemalan Congress. Montt seized power in a 1982 military coup and led a scorched-earth campaign against indigenous communities, claiming that their illiteracy rates made them vulnerable to the seduction of “international communism.” In 2006 a Spanish Constitutional Court issued an arrest warrant for Montt and seven other government figures that were key architects of the campaign. Today, however, Guatemala refuses to honor the warrants, saying that Spain does not have international jurisdiction it claims to have when prosecuting crimes against humanity.
A Fragile Peace Process
While the war has officially ended, politically-motivated violence continues to plague the country. Over fifty candidates and campaign activists were killed in the months preceding the 2007 election that propelled President Alvaro Colom to power. In a recent trip to Guatemala, Hina Jilani, the U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Representative, said she was alarmed at the number of attacks against the country’s human rights activists in recent years, adding that the country now experiences one attack against a human rights defender every other day.
Colom, who was sworn in as president in January, has promised to make fighting crime the top priority for his administration. It may be too early to see results, but given the country’s history it will be a great challenge to implement a lasting peace able to heal Guatemala’s deeply divided society.
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